INSPIRATION FOR A NEW GENERATION

Student graphic novelists find their way to Comic-Con

Jorge Garcia, the creator of the “The Super Friends,” sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con at the convention center. He is part of the Los Altos club that presented graphic novels created during the last year. Howard Lipin • U-T

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Jorge Garcia, the creator of the “The Super Friends,” sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con at the convention center. He is part of the Los Altos club that presented graphic novels created during the last year. Howard Lipin • U-T

July 12, 2012-SAN DIEGO, CA| Abraham Lizarraga, the creator of the comic book, Captain Nerdy Pants, sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con. He is part of B.L.A.S.T. (Blazing Los Altos Super Team) comic book club at the school. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

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July 12, 2012-SAN DIEGO, CA| Abraham Lizarraga, the creator of the comic book, Captain Nerdy Pants, sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con. He is part of B.L.A.S.T. (Blazing Los Altos Super Team) comic book club at the school. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

July 12, 2012-SAN DIEGO, CA| Abraham Lizarraga, the creator of the comic book, Captain Nerdy Pants, sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con. He is part of B.L.A.S.T. (Blazing Los Altos Super Team) comic book club at the school. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

+Read Caption

July 12, 2012-SAN DIEGO, CA| Abraham Lizarraga, the creator of the comic book, Captain Nerdy Pants, sits at the Los Altos Elementary School booth during Comic-Con. He is part of B.L.A.S.T. (Blazing Los Altos Super Team) comic book club at the school. |Howard Lipin /UT San Diego). Mandatory to Credit HOWARD LIPIN/U-T San Diego/ZUMA PRESS, U-T San Diego

CHULA VISTA 
Among the throngs of walking dead, living dead and Hollywood celebs that crammed into the San Diego Convention Center last week for Comic-Con International, a group of up-and-coming graphic novelists from Los Altos Elementary School in Chula Vista got to flaunt their own supernatural, super hero stuff.

By invitation of the Comic-Con powers that be, the nine-student Blast Blazing Los Altos Super Team not only attended the pop culture convention but hosted a booth of its own. In the Small Press area, the Los Altos kids took turns presenting the comic books they created over the past year in the school’s graphic novel club.

Their presence at the four-day pop culture convergence made them the first elementary school to exhibit in the convention’s 43-year history. Perhaps more remarkable was that, except for one, all the students in the club are English language learners.

“This has been a very interesting journey to get them reading in English,” Los Altos Principal Deirdre Romero said. “Literacy can be generated through different ways.

“It doesn’t have to be through a science or social studies text book. A graphic novel can be a very inspiring vehicle.”

Motivated by her son who was in a graphic novel club at his high school, Romero created the Los Altos’ club last fall. She and five comic-book loving members of her staff led the club through the school year.

Originally, about 30 students signed up, but membership eventually settled to the nine hard-core aficionados of the genre. The students had to read two to three graphic novels a month and learn about the history of comics before inventing their own hero and writing a storyline and drawing their characters.

A couple months in, Romero wrote a letter and submitted samples of her students work to Comic-Con organizers trying to garner a space at the convention. Romero knew of high schools that applied several times before being granted a spot, so receiving the invitation was all the more momentous.

“It was no mean feat for my students to get in on the first try,” she said.

With the invitation came even more work for the Blast Blazing Los Altos Super Team. Students had to practice being interviewed and fielding questions about their books from what was anticipated to be a horde of curious conventioneers. Romero said she wanted to instill in her kids the importance of marketing themselves and their talent.

“It’s a life skill they can take with them forever,” she said. “Maybe there is a creative graphic novelist of the future.”

Incoming sixth grader Jorge Garcia, 11, wants to be one of them. A Comic-Con veteran, having attended with his family since he was 5, he was excited to share his 10-page opus, “The Super Friends,” about three middle school friends — James, Scott and Melissa — who got super powers from drinking water they found in a forest.

Jorge’s favorite crusading caricature is Superman “because of all the powers he has.” He wrote his graphic novel as an homage of sorts to the authors he reads most, many of whom he has also met at the convention.

“I’m fascinated by Stan Lee, who created a bunch of super heroes,” Jorge said. “I’ve met comic book writers Kevin Eastman and Jim Lee. I read their stories and notice how they draw and then I figure it out on how it works.

“I thought it would be fun to create my own little comic and make my own heroes.”

Juana Vargas, 10, who enters fifth grade at Los Altos later this month, was also thrilled to show off her graphic novel, “The Amazing Potato Man.” Her tale about a man who develops super powers — and a tuber-like appearance — after being pushed into a vat of toxic waste, is as riveting as it is chock-full of good versus evil action.

(Without giving away too much, the protagonist has to do battle with his mean ex-wife, Crystal, who is also endowed with super powers. One of them ends up in the hoosegow.)

“It was really exciting,” Juana said of her Comic-Con debut. “I hope to go next year.”

A devotee of Spider-Man, Juana said she will re-up in the Los Altos graphic novel club next year because it was “very cool” to have the freedom to create her own story line and draw her own characters. Getting to attend the convention was no slouch, either.

“A lot of schools make comic books, but they don’t get the chance to go to Comic-Con,” she said. “That is really cool.”